Monday, May 23, 2016

After posting it, I realized there could've been a curve on the teeth rather than a strait line. It might look more natural. Mind you, his teeth are such a feature so maybe it brings more attention to them. Either way, that was how I instinctively drew him so I'm just going to leave it that way.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

"Sometime you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you" is an old frontier saying that features in The Big Lebowski. I'm figuring this could well be the third part of the saying. It rings true with confronting a bear .. and often rings true with life as well.T-shirt (mugs, stickers etc) @ Redbubble

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Still doing the daily 20x5 minute pencil sketch caricatures. Today I wrote "angry faces" into Google images and what came up was very interesting to draw. Great eyebrows, dark expressions ... and a lot of teeth.

Interestingly, hardly any photos of women came up. It was mostly men (and babies, altho I didn't draw them any of them ... a bit boring).

Friday, May 13, 2016

For today's 20 quick caricature sketches I searched "Afghanistan Faces". Absolutely incredible. The faces were amazing. Outside, a neighbor was playing Ravel's "Bolero" and it added an extra dimension, esp when I found it on Youtube and had it on my headphones.Amazing faces, hardened. All the kids looked miserable. Of course these photos might be staged and my own prejudices/view creeping in, but we all know how tough that land is. They were faces full of character and incredible looks but by far the most noticeable part was their eyes. Either black as the ace or shiny like gems. Stunning.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

For today's 20 random caricatures I typed in "Iran Faces" (I know it should be "Iranian" but I just kept simple).

Excuse my ignorance, but I expected a sea of burqas and only male faces. That wasn't the case at all. If anything there were more female faces than male and they were all wearing Hijabs - or as I later discovered, Chadors (never heard that word before and still can't tell the difference between a Hijab and a Chador).

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Everyday for the past 3 and a half weeks I've been drawing 20 quick pencil sketches of random people off the internet each day. That means today I hit number 500 since I started (my hope is that by the time I get to 1000 there'll be a noticeable improvement).

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Recently I decided my caricature needed a bit of a kick along so for the past 3 weeks I've been drawing no less than 20 caricatures a day. Just quick pencil sketches - 5 minutes each. I've also been trying to pick up my photoshop skills. At the moment the photoshop ones feel a bit labored but hoping to get a better flow with them the more I do them.

Btw the caricatures aren't famous people. Normally I'd draw famous people - or people I know, so I pretty much know if I have a like or not but for the sake of speed I've just been typing in "face" or "asian face", "interesting face", "something or other face" in Google images then just draw them in sequence. Click on the first face then the other 7 prompts till I have my 20 or so. Unless the res is too low or the photo too stupid.

The interesting thing is that no matter what kind of "face" is typed into google, there's always a much higher number of female faces than male faces that come up. What does that mean?

The tragic thing is, when you type in "Australian face" you get a whole bunch of photos with people with the Australian flag painted on their face. It's my country and I shld be proud of it - and am, in ways .. but seriously, I can see why we often come across as idiots.

The exercise feels worthwhile. The drawings themselves are pretty scratchy but there are moments of improvement. My plan is to do this till I draw 1000 of them (approx 7 weeks, so almost half way there). An idea, no doubt, planted in my mind from a friend of mine Ron Chiu who is currently doing his own project of drawing 1000 portraits. His approach is different in that he's been traveling and drawing people he meets along the way - which sounds fantastic, and he's doing a great job. Good on you Ron and thanks for the inspiration.